And God said, "Lighten up!"

WASHINGTON (CNS) - "Humor is in fact an essential element in the mirth of creation. We can see how in many matters in our lives that God wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly; to see the funny side of it; to get down off our pedestal and not to forget our sense of fun." -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI

I know the cardinal-now-pope never had dinner at our house during the late 1980s, but if he had he would have witnessed what happens when God prods us into taking things more lightly. Some people decorate their homes with valuable art or antiques. When our children were growing up, our house was saturated with laughter. It was less expensive than art, and unlike antiques it did not require dusting. Just as we nurtured our children's abilities to love, pray, read and get along with others, we nurtured their ability to laugh, to see the humor in everyday life. I'm not sure when the nurturing began, but when our five children were born my mother bought each a joke book. "She'll (he'll) need that," she'd reply when someone questioned the unusual gift for a newborn grandchild. As the older ones began to read, they shared the jokes with their nonreading siblings. Chicken jokes, knock-knock jokes -- it didn't matter. The subtleties of humor were learned and enjoyed. It was not uncommon for them to sit up in bed at night reading jokes to each other. Exchanging a few minutes' sleep for several minutes of laughter was worth it -- for them and us. One of the first baby sitters we entrusted our children to was a member of our parish youth group -- a quiet youth, or so we thought. When we came home that night the children were elated -- and wide awake -- by the enjoyable time they'd had. Today that young man who did impressions and gave our children unicycle rides is a stand-up comedian in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. As with any kind of nurturing, humor has to be modeled for children. If they see and hear mom and dad laugh, especially at themselves, they'll learn that laughing is good. When the seven of us sat down for supper, each had an opportunity to talk about how the day had gone. Some reports were serious: "I had to stay in from recess because I didn't finish my math." But more often they were about saying or doing something unintentionally funny. It was around the dinner table that contagious, gasping-for-air, stomach-holding, lose-track-of-time laughter arose. Sometimes it was how the person delivered the narrative that made others laugh or just the facial expression that elicited mirth. Other times it might have been the nature of an incident. Always, we reminded each other, we were laughing with the person, not at him or her. No teasing; no snide comments. Humor wasn't forced or fabricated. It wasn't of the formulaic sitcom variety. Rather, we found it in what was happening in our own lives. As adults, they remember those times and laugh again. When my children talk about videos we got from the library, they always laugh that they were the only children in third grade who'd seen "All the President's Men" but not "Mary Poppins." To this day, his siblings will ask our oldest son, "Where's Boston College?" For when he was considering schools, he actually asked that question. And they all laugh. Humor at its best is the humor rooted in the everyday lives of family members. One's experience becomes a shared experience as parents and siblings laugh together. It needs no laugh track to remind us it is funny. Rather, the humor is evident because we have been brought up, as Pope Benedict XVI once said, to see the funny side of things and have fun. So, as God might put it, "Lighten up!" - - - Olszewski is executive editor of the Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops